Find No Sooner Part 1: Why No Hides

The social, cultural, and structural reasons people hide their concerns and objections.

Author

Elise Keith
June 06, 2025

Have you ever played hide-and-seek with a toddler? They're not very good at it.
Mine believed that if they couldn't see us, we couldn't see them. Like little pink ravenous bugblatter beasts of Traal.

toddlers "hide" by putting a blanket on their headss

Sometimes they manage to hide most of themselves. But it doesn’t take much seeking to spot the rest.

toddler hides in a kitchen cabinet with toes peeking outt

Adults do the same thing with their opinions.
They hide their "no" under a thin towel of "yes."

But the signs peek out. Projects that never go anywhere. Slow replies. A raft of new questions. Ghosting. Imaginary blockers.

I recently led a session on The Hidden Language of 'No', where we explored ways to uncover objections and address resistance. People asked for more, so here we go—a four-part series on finding the hidden No.

The Series:

Let’s start with why No gets hidden in the first place.

Why No Hides

I'm based in the U.S. West, senior in my profession, and was raised with blunt Norwegian grandparents.
I usually say No when I mean No.

Leaders comfortable sharing a straight-up Yes or No can have trouble interpreting the more opaque ways others say No.

Interpreting the Wonderful Diversity of No

First, there are the silent Nos that we take as Yes.

As master facilitator Nancy Settle-Murphy shared:

Oftentimes (in workshops), people say yes to get along, to go along, or to not be that person who is the contrarian.

Then a participant from an Eastern culture shared that:

"the NO is not acceptable in any situation."

In some cultures, disagreement is confrontation. And confrontation is disrespect.
Erin Meyer documents this beautifully:

A Mexican employee explained, “In Mexican culture, open disagreement is considered rude, disrespectful, and too aggressive.”
An Indonesian employee said, “To an Indonesian person, confrontation in a group setting is extremely negative, because it makes the other person lose face. So it’s something that we try strongly to avoid in any open manner.”

I saw this firsthand years ago, building voting software for standards orgs. The options included "yes with comment." We’d get 80% yes votes and celebrate—until we read the comments from Japanese and Taiwanese teams.
Twelve serious issues. Clear blockers.
That was not a Yes. That was a diplomatic No.

You don’t have to cross oceans to see this.

Robert Hodge described working with Midwest college leaders:

Working with a group of leaders in private colleges to collaborate on things behind the scenes, I found that:
Yes usually meant yes, but not always. It could mean:
- Yes, we are going to do it,
- Yes, that is a great idea but I'm not committing to it
- Yes, I like that and want to talk more about it later, and by tomorrow, I might see something that is yet better.

"NO" meant "based on these facts and numbers, we are not going to do it".
But, that meant that with new and improved facts and numbers, you can come back and talk with me. No did not inherently mean forever.

"Wait and see" actually means a real "No, we are not going to do it. I don't want to talk about it anymore but I won't just tell you that.  Don't bring me new facts and figures"

His takeaway:

I spent too much time giving more information to the "Wait and see " people.  I learned to clarify what "yes" meant, then going with the real yes people to start, going back to the "No" people with my early wins, proof of concept and improved frameworks, but totally ignoring the "wait and see" people."

Exacerbating Obfuscation: How Leaders Ensure No Stays Hidden

So sometimes Yes means No, and No means Not Yet, and some people are raised to believe that No is never, never okay. No, it is not!

Our cultural and personal differences make discovering true objections tricky, and leaders often seem determined to make their lives even harder by:

1. Not Asking for Real Input

  • We forget to ask.

  • We worry about how to ask without derailing the conversation.

  • We don't feel like we have time.

  • We don't want to put people on the spot. 

  • We don’t want to offend.

  • We ask an unclear question.

Or, as several people noted,

"When we explain the plan, no one says No. So we assume Yes."

There's an art to asking questions that yield rich answers.
But even when you know how to ask for feedback in a way that helps diverse groups share honest feedback, you might find that you're:

2. Missing the Window for Transparency

"If the overwhelming majority of people are going along with something... even if I try to safely draw others out, they're not saying what's on their mind because of peer pressure."

Nancy Settle-Murphy

That boat has sailed, riding high on a wave of popular opinion.

3. Reacting Without Understanding

People act on the stories they tell themselves.
Even when their understanding is based solely on rumor, assumptions, and best guesses.

This blade cuts both ways.
Leaders happily assume that silence means approval.
Employees may interpret a lack of information as a signal that leaders have greedy plans to profit on the broken backs of their employees.

A 2002 study highlighted how small truths withheld compound into serious resistance:

"The central finding is that employees will commit to a manager’s decision—even one they disagree with—if they believe that the process the manager used to make the decision was fair. Sounds simple, but most organizations don’t practice fair process. And because they don’t, they never know what they’ve lost in the way of ideas and initiatives."

W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne, Fair Process: Managing in the Knowledge Economy, HBR

4. Circling the Validation Vortex

I typically work with leaders, and they claim there's been a significant increase in the level of validation and "hand holding" their newer employees seem to require.
They say it's exhausting.

But it's not just the junior folks. Leaders are more anxious, too.

Pressured, spread thin, second-guessing, trying to keep everyone trucking happily along as the economic highways crumble beneath them.
Leaders are also seeking more validation than in the past.

Ask an anxious leader, "What time does the meeting start?" and watch the spiral:
"I thought 9 AM—wait, is that too early? Maybe 9:30? I know traffic is bad. You could work from home that day if needed. Does that work?"

This is anxiety masquerading as consideration.
Each interaction drains a little more energy as people attempt to assuage each other's insecurities.
Eventually, teams learn:
Stay quiet, avoid triggering anyone's spiral, and preserve your energy.

Bottom line: When teams adopt silence as a survival tactic, resistance festers.

So given all that, how can you break the silence and ask for critical input?

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